1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to interactive touch and force-sensitive displays controlled through user gestures. More particularly, the invention concerns the machine-implemented identification of particular human gestures from points of contact and applied force, and the implementation of predetermined machine-implemented actions pre-associated with the gestures.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are many situations in which people wish to collaboratively and interactively explore image-based data, for example by mutually looking at and manipulating a paper map. With large, table-like touch sensitive displays, a group of users can jointly view imagery. This is preferable to huddling around a single workstation or sitting at separate workstations and conversing by phone or email.
Imagery on table-like touch sensitive interactive displays is typically manipulated by a single user, either seated at a separate workstation or using physical controls on the display. For example, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications developed an interactive display with projected imagery, which is operated by a single user at a nearby control console. Although this approach has some benefits, some teams might find that this scheme does not permit them to interact with the display as intuitively and meaningfully as desired.
Another approach is Sony's SmartSkin interactive display, in which operators manipulate a computer's display using a limited set of gestures such as panning and rotation. If utilized for certain applications such as geographic imagery, however, users might find that the Sony system lacks image manipulating gestures that are sufficiently complex and intuitive. Consequently, users might experience a protracted learning curve, for example, by having to remember complicated interface commands.
Consequently, known multi-user touch sensitive interactive displays are not always completely adequate for all applications due to certain unsolved issues.